18 month photos and other related milestone news

Yesterday while I served at a church event, Lo Lo had some fun one-on-one Daddy time. Among other activities, Jerry took Lo Lo to get 18 month photos during their time together. Mixing plaids, stripes, and every hue of blue. We'll take it. Lo loves wearing sunglasses, though he currently doesn't own a pair of his own. This beach scene is the free 8x10 collage we ordered which we can pick up in a couple weeks. We didn't actually purchase any photos...probably they are starting to roll their eyes every time we go to this Sears place since we get a lot of Lo's milestones covered through just using the coupons and not really buying much. Oh well.

This was another cute photo from yesterday that nonetheless BUGS me because we seem to be unable to catch his upper teeth. Seriously, we have ZERO photos of his upper front teeth, and I have only seen glimpses of them a handful of times in real life, like when he laughs hard and/or I am tipping him upside-down or am standing below him on the playground, etc.

On this particular smile, Lo was saying the word "keys!" because Jerry offered his keychain to try to get Lo to look at the camera. This kid LOVES keys, and has gotten pretty good at opening our mailbox lock and starting the ignition in the car. He pronounces keys "dees." Another funny word he just started saying is "cool." He pronounces it "dooOOL!" With lots of inflection. It cracks me up. These are the things he has called "cool" in the past couple days: potato salad, green salad, his new mini table/chairs set, and a lot more stuff I don't recall at the moment.

I forgot to mention this during his 18 month post, but Lo Lo only had 10 teeth total when he hit 18 months old; 6 on top (4 front plus 2 canines) and 4 front bottom teeth. Over the past couple weeks Lo Lo has gotten in several molars, so that is exciting. He had just one night of restless sleep that seemed to be disrupted by teething, but it has been otherwise a non-eventful process getting these molars. I'm interested to see if he eats more solids now that he has molars in his mouth.

mini bowling

We have pretty much a lifetime supply of vinyl kicking around our house, so sometimes we get creative about how to use it. Using some of the yellow vinyl (wish we had wood grain color!) Jerry made a mini bowling alley for our Family Home Evening activity. These cute tiny bowling balls/pins were just $1, and we had a surprisingly hilarious, exciting time perfecting our skills. We each got a strike or two, and Jerry ended up winning by a couple points when scores were tallied from our three games.

Cleaning

We helped get the outside of our church building all spruced up for the springtime a little while back.  We had some cute little helping hands.  Lo Lo picked dandelions again to give to the ladies. 

He swept the sidewalk.

And raked the parking lot.  Didn't you know a parking lot benefits from the occasional raking?  :)

And he placed dry leaves (one at a time) into the trash barrel.  We love our Lo. 

Roads and Walking the Line

I had been wanting to find an "external" educational philosophy that matched what Jerry and I already believe and practice with raising our Lo Lo. Though I had heard of Montessori before, it was only in brief snippets of info, and I did not fully realize how wonderful it was until just a few weeks ago when I began chatting with a Montessori teacher. Since then I have slowly been planning and implementing Montessori techniques at home, and hope to get Lo in a Montessori preschool before long. I plan to do a whole big ol' blog post on it soon, but for now, here is one of the Montessori ideas implemented in our home: walking on a line.

For some reason we don't have many good photos illustrating it, but here is Lo Lo on the road Jerry created out of vinyl. Yes, Lo Lo also has donned a pair of Jerry's running shorts around the neck. How else could one properly perform exercises unless thus attired.

And here is the totally not age-appropriate/not Montessori appropriate RC truck the boys have been enjoying on the road. LOL. I say "boys" plural because Jerry gets more playtime out of this truck than Lo.

When he saw the STOP sign, Lo said "Stop Stop Stop!"..."Go Go Go!" Along with the corresponding ASL signs. Smartypants. =)

Arbor Day

I think it was Arbor Day a little while back, or at least some sort of observance that caused our local arboretum to have free admission. So we headed there for an afternoon jaunt. It sort of melts my heart when Lo Lo sits down on little ledges, curbs, etc. because it just reminds me how short his legs are. And I think I will miss it when he someday is tall enough to lower himself naturally onto a bench instead of clambering up there with such cute awkwardness. Jerry is severely allergic to Maple tree pollen and most varieties of grass, so perhaps an arboretum wasn't the best place for him to visit. He kept rubbing and holding his nose because it was bothering him with the allergies, and then we noticed Lo Lo was copying:

Isn't this such a lovely scenic place. We wanted a family photo on this bench (below). But there were no people around to take a shot of the three of us. So here is Jerry's initial photo of Lo and me:

...and here is the shot of Jerry using the timer:

Okay, round two went a little better. :)

And in case you were wondering what red colored object Lo Lo has in his hands for those previous couple photos, here is a closeup of his watermelon popsicle. It was made of 100% fruit, and tasted a little odd to me. Frozen watermelon has a strange texture I suppose, and I am looking forward to those days of summer--coming soon!--when the grocers produce section starts overflowing with juicy fresh watermelons.

I suppose since it is an arboretum, we should get a shot of a tree or two. Here is a tree big enough to eat Lo in one bite:

But the favorite pastime of the day had to be picking dandelions. Lo Lo thinks they are glorious floral finds, and delights in doling them out to all the ladies in our neighborhood.

Here he is doing the ASL sign for "flower" as he holds his dandelion:

And I thought his shirt was fitting for the day's journey through the gardens. The shirt says "Exploring Adventure" and is a top Lo Lo picked out all for himself. I've started to let him choose the shirts he wears each day by giving him an option of two different shirts. Usually he grabs for whichever t-shirt has a car or truck printed on it.

The video shows Lo Lo as he noticed a dead fish in the pond. He says "mu mu" which is his lazy way to say the "blub blub" noise of a bubbling fish sound we taught him. Also toward the end of the clip he makes a "buzzing" noise of a bumble bee which is pretty funny.

Pao Bu Shorts

This morning, Lo Lo dug into the laundry basket and found Jerry's running shorts. Yelling, "pao bu, pao bu, Daddy pao bu!" Lo kept trying to wear the shorts. Finally Jerry helped him put them on: And the happy kid ran through the hallway.

He was super proud of himself.

Let's go fly a kite!

First, a side note that we had a nice mother's day yesterday. I started the day by doing a scripture study on motherhood, and ended up being really touched when I read yet again The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Our ward was thoughtful and gave something besides wilting pansies to all the women; they gave us a luncheon and opportunity to chat with each other for the last half hour of Relief Society. Jerry, Liam and I made cards for the mothers/grandmothers in our family but didn't get them sent out in time to arrive by Mother's Day...a phone card yet again saved the day. I guess that'[s what my mom is getting. We are still trying to get our webcam up and running again. We had some neighbors over for dinner yesterday too, which was fun.

Anyway, the springtime weather has brought some strong winds, so a week or two ago we headed down to the beach to fly our kite. Driftwood logs--this one was huge and had such a big hollowed-out middle Lo Lo could have crawled through it if we let him (but we didn't let him...too many creepy critters inside).

Lo Lo's Chinese name written out in the sand. See it?

Shaggy hair. We gave him a hair cut right after these shots were taken. We'll have to post the new 'do soon.









Here is Lo's reaction when we first began flying the kite. He kept saying "Woah!" or "Yeah!" and seemed to love the way the wind whipped the kite all around. Then when some beach cleaning machinery drove by, he lost all interest in the kite in order to watch the "che che" (Chinese word for cars).






Drawing in the sand, and getting sand out of Lo Lo's eyes.

18 Months

Okay, even though I've felt like he has been 18 months for awhile now, now he is that age "officially," so here are my thoughts on our toddler at 18 months. He's a happy kid most of the time! The photo below was from his 18-month doctor's appointment.We let him run around the hallway in this getup while waiting for the doctor to make his rounds. lol.: Lo Lo is growing in abilities every day. He regularly talks in sentences ("Daddy Pao Bu," or "No No No Mommy, More!" for example when I put away the candy ...hooray, "No" is a favorite word). He can walk up and down stairs if he is holding my hand. He tosses a ball every way imaginable and catches it, which we have got to get on film because I know y'all don't believe me. =) He naps a good 2 hours or so in the middle of the day. I'm not sure what else to say, because he has had such an explosion of changes in the past few months, it is overwhelming to take stock of it all and try to summarize. I suppose I'll give a few of his favorite things...

Favorite toys: Little People sets (he has started doing pretend play pretty regularly and now loves the Little People sets Aunt Jennifer gave us last year); shape sorter (he does this one all by himself finally); Mommy's keys (he hasn't lost them yet, knock on wood); magnets; and coins. The latter three objects Lo Lo enjoys putting into slots, like he shoves magnets through the slatted furnace room door, puts coins down the cracks of his basketball hoop base (losing them forever), etc. Are we tempting fate that he might one day choke on a coin? Perhaps. But he really doesn't seem to be one of those "mouthy" kids, so maybe that's why I feel relaxed about it.

Favorite thing to do: help with chores. Seriously, if I don't let him have his own garbage bag to drag out to the dumpster when I take out the trash, he protests vehemently. He also likes to "help" crack eggs into the pan each morning (again, I cater to him).

Favorite words: Woah! or Wow; Mut Mut (sock in Cantonese); and Dime (he calls all coins dimes and frequently throughout the day asks me to give him a "Dime? Dime? Dime?" to play with). He still signs a lot too, picking up new signs every day when we watch the Signing Time DVD.

Favorite person: Daddy. Even though I'm in nursery with Lo Lo, he spends a good portion of each Sunday knocking on the nursery room door asking to leave so we can go find Daddy. Lo still loves me of course too, and sometimes cries pretty sad if I leave to go somewhere which I don't do often.

Favorite foods: breastmilk (he still nurses a lot); regular milk from the fridge (he uses the same word for it as when he wants to nurse--"Nai" which is the Chinese word for "milk"); crackers; cheese--esp. Sharp Cheddar or Cottage Cheese; any kind of fruit. Oh, and the photo below is a classic olives-on-the-fingers shot:

Favorite books: The Angry Moon, by William Sleator.  I think he likes the moon's scary face? Anything with cars, trucks, etc. though we have a "big book of animals" Lo Lo likes to look at. He "reads" books to himself pretty often now, which is adorable. The interesting thing about reading is that I have found we do less of it since he has become more active in playing over the past few months. I need to stay conscientious about implementing at least a half hour of reading time into each day.

Least favorite things: his high chair (I think we are almost completely done with it...at mealtimes he just sits on his knees on a chair at the table with us now or on Mommy/Daddy's lap...we've got to get him his own little mini table and chair); spending a "long time" strapped in his stroller, carseat, a shopping cart etc. (20 mins. or so is his limit at which time he starts to get predictably restless).

Overall this age is the most fun part of parenting yet, but I do feel a need to revamp my daily routine with Lo. He has changed so much, and I can't keep up. I am starting to learn some Montessori principles to apply in our home, so hopefully that will help add structure and learning to our days.





I know the video picture quality isn't the best, but he yells a couple times "pao bu," which is precious for us to have recorded. It means "run" in Chinese which is another of Lo's favorite words.